WashPost: Plan to Secure Postwar Iraq Faulted

[mburbank]

Okay, here's what I don't get:


"The administration, without explanation, has replaced retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner, the Pentagon's chief reconstruction official, with L. Paul Bremer III, a former Reagan administration diplomat who arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday"

What the HELL? How does any newspaper in the country let this stand? Make the administration at least go on record as refusing to respond! Holding authority to account is what a free press is FOR!

If "the Pentagon had anticipated "serious problems" in the postwar period and ...careful planning had helped avert food and medical crises in the country.", if "security issues and 'terrible problems' with electricity, water and other basic services, 'by and large existed before the war.'", ie. we were aware of these problems going in, then WHY does Garner need to be replaced?

As a tax payer footing the bill for this project, I'd like to know what's going on and why the Boss needed to be replaced. As a Taxpayer footing the bill I don't find replacement with "No explanation" very satisfying.